Southeast Asia is the world's major import market for steel. World Steel Association statistics show that in 2017, Thailand's net imports of 12.6 million tons of steel, becoming the world's second largest net importer of steel products after the United States; Vietnam net imports of steel 12.3 million tons, ranking third in the world; other Southeast Asian countries China and Indonesia have a net import of 8.7 million tons of steel, the Philippines has a net import of 7.3 million tons of steel, and Malaysia has a net import of 6 million tons of steel. The net imports of steel from Southeast Asia and the five countries in 2017 reached 46.9 million tons, which is reflected in the imbalance of steel supply and demand in the Southeast Asia region.

Formosa Plastics Vietnam Iron and Steel Project and Industrial Park joint steel project have been put into operation successively, and several other steel joint projects have been started and put into operation one after another. It will greatly improve the structure of the steel industry in Southeast Asia, and optimize the ratio of pig iron, crude steel and steel. The improvement of the production capacity of crude steel and steel in the Southeast Asia region will be of great benefit, which will help ease the conflict between supply and demand of steel in the region, but it will also increase the intensity of competition between local steel and imported steel.